willie

Hey Guys,
I'm looking for how you guys change your own tires for the SH? When I use to race I had one of the manual tire changers from harbour freight. It worked alright, but at the time I didn't care if my rims got scracthed up. Just looking for what methods you guys use.

Been thinking about building some type of "jig" for this as well


Thanks

fundgh

I have a home made bead removing tool bolted to my garage. It consists of a 5 ft long 2 x 4 bolted with a single bolt through a stud in my garage, with a 10 in. 2 x 4 bolted to it about 1/4 of the length away from the wall. It works great for unseating the beads. My intention was to be able to dismount and mount tires myself, but I don't have "spoons" or levers of any kind. At this point I am not too worried about my wheels, but since the above mentioned device is all wood, it doesn't scratch the wheels.
I use a square milk crate as a wheel stand, however using a 15" auto wheel with rubber around the rim would probably work better.

Thumper

I actually have the Harbor Freight Motorcycle Tire changer and it is mounted to the garage floor. I coated the three tire mounts in the rubber stuff you can buy to dip hand tools in. It works great and not wheel scratches at all.

Now the HF Mount/Dismount tire tool SUCKS, so i bought a No-Mar Mount/Dismount tire removal tool that comes with tire removal solution and a great dvd. The Tire tool has nylon tips on each end so no wheel scratching either.
http://www.nomartirechanger.com/06DemountBar.html

I have dismounted around 20 wheels (dirt and Street) with no problems and no scratches. I hand balance them on a set of jack stands and apply stick-on weights as needed.

Never had a out of balance wheel/Tire combo and no scratched wheels. It takes 5 minutes to change a SuperHawk Tire once you have the tire mounted in the tire changer.

drew_c14

That's insane! Never had any problems with the wheels even at high speeds?

Thumper

Nope, Years ago that is exactly how they did it at the track.

Whats so complicated about it. You are looking for a heavy spot, spin the wheel, mark where it stops, spin it again and mark again.

If you can spin it 10 to 15 times and mark the bottom of the wheel wach time it stops. If the marks are all the way around the wheel you are good to go. If they are located more in one area, then apply a 1/4 ounce weight opposite of what appears to be the heavy area and repeat the spinning and marking process until marks are all the way around the wheel or more weight is needed.

Easy to do and free other than the weights. Usually the front wheels son't even need weight if you put the yellow dot on the valve stem.

http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-wheels/balancer/

http://www.webbikeworld.com/Reviewed...ucts/balancer/

http://www.clarity.net/~adam/tire-changing-doc.html
STEP EIGHT: Balancing, Part II
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Now that you've got the tire all mounted, it's time to balance the thing. If you haven't already, put the valve core back in the valve stem, and reinstall the valve stem cap. Take the wheel over to the balance stand, slide the axle through it, and put it up on the stand. Leave the axle spacers out to help the wheel spin more freely. As before, if your bearings have enough drag that the wheel just won't spin freely (or keeps trying to roll the whole assembly off the stands), find a place where you can set up two parallel and level 2x4" boards, and use those to hold the axle up.

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Just like before, find the heavy spot. If the light spot on the tire and the heavy spot on the rim cancelled out, maybe there isn't one. If there is a heavy spot, add weight on the opposite end of the rim (180 degrees away) in small increments, until the heavy spot disappears. When attaching weight to the wheel, put it as close to the centerline as possible. You should only need to add weight in one spot -- if you find that you have to add weight in multiple spots, you messed up. Move the weight to the middle and try a little less of it. If you're adding more than one "unit" of weight, make sure it's balanced evenly on the left and right sides of the rim centerline. Half of the weight should go on each side, again, as close to the center as possible.

Once you know how much weight to install -- and where it goes -- clean that spot with a paint-safe contact cleaner, and while it dries, put double-sided tape on the bottom of some strip weight. Then put it on, and cover the spot with color-matched duct tape. Et voila! One balanced wheel.
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drew_c14

Actually sounds easy. Just never really thought about it I guess.

Tweety

For balancing I do the same... just a tad more sofisticated with slight mods holding the axle... tape...

Thumper

Understand the tape. that is why use jack stands, they have a natural dip in the top of the stand wheer the axle or large bars i use can rest easily.

Check out the No-Mar Mount/Dismount tool. the HF changer and No-Mar combo make for an inexpensive and scratch free method for easily changing a tire.